Saturday, August 08, 2015

Iraq snapshot

Saturday, August 8, 2015. Chaos and violence continue, protests continue in Iraq, Haider al-Abadi's chance to demonstrate 'change' appears to have passed, the one year anniversary of Barack's plan or 'plan' reveals no real progress, and much more.

Starting with news of awards, Nick Vivarelli (Variety) reports, " Iraqi-French director Abbas Fahdel’s docu “Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) is the winner of the Doc Alliance
Selection Award, given by a group of seven prominent European festivals
dedicated to docus, and presented for the first time this year at the
Locarno Film Festival."

Abbas Fahde is an Iraqi-French film director, screenwriter and film critic, born in Babylon, Iraq. Based in France since the age of 18 years, he studied cinema at
the Sorbonne University until Ph.D. In January 2002, he returned to
Iraq with a French passport and filmed a documentary film, Back to Babylon (film), in which he asked himself: “What
have my childhood friends become? How have their lives changed? What
would my life have been like if I hadn’t chosen to build my destiny
elsewhere?” The country’s dramatic situation is the background of this introspective investigation.One year later, in February 2003, when a new war seems
imminent, Abbas Fahdel returned to Iraq with the intention of filming
his family and friends, and the superstitious hope of protecting them
against the dangers threatening them. When the war started, he returned
to France and lost all contact with his family. Two months later, he
again returned to Iraq and discovered a country shaken by violence, the
nightmare of dictatorship replaced by chaos, but a country where,
nonetheless, everything remains possible: the best or the worse. This
historical moment is the theme of his second documentary film, We Iraqis.In 2008, he directed the feature film Dawn of the World,
a war-drama in which he gives an unexpected account of the multiple
impacts of the Gulf Wars and how they have dramatically damaged an area
known to be the geographic location of the biblical Garden of Eden.

Moving over to activism, protests continue in Iraq. As with last weekend, protests continued. Friday, Alsumaria reported that Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr issued instructions Thursday for his followers which included that they take
part in peaceful actions and not damage private property, that they not
wear military uniforms while protesting and that they not carry
photos/placards/banners with photos of any political or religious
official.

If everyone is supporting the protests, who are the protests against? #Iraq

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In the image above, the top right is Moqtada al-Sadr and below him is
Ammar al-Hakim. Ammar is the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council in
Iraq. If he's now supporting the protesters, that would be a big switch
from his remarks earlier this week.

"If we
cannot provide enough electric power for the Iraqis, why don't the
families buy private generators?" asked an Iraqi official during a
recent press interview. It was similar to the quotation misattributed to
French Queen Marie Antoinette two hundred years ago; if the people
don't have bread, "Then let them eat cake."Again, like the French, the Iraqis revolted by igniting the uprising
in Basra. This spread around the country and this time the Iraqi leaders
could not blame the Yazidis, which they had done in the past when there
was activity in Iraq's western cities. Those who gathered in Iraq's
Tahrir and other Squares did not belong to a specific sect, race or
party. They gathered as Iraqis and expressed their anger at their rulers
who have subjected them to decades of failure, with neither justice nor
anything as mundane as new building projects. Instead, the leaders
conspired in the name of religion to loot the country's wealth and used
its resources to satisfy their evil desires and feed their obsession for
money and power.

al-Saadoun goes on to note how the Iraqi government went on to blame the
Islamic State with Ammar al-Hakim (leader of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq) insisting that the protesters themselves were members
of the Islamic State. How very sad events have been for al-Hakim. His
relationship with the US has soured. He's not moved forward or higher
in the political hierarchy of Iraq. And now he's attacking the people
in a manner that recalls Nouri al-Maliki's ridiculous attacks on the
protesters.

So if Ammar is now supporting the protesters, that would actually be major news.

Regardless of whether Ammar supports them or not, the protesters were out in full force:

Speaker of the House of Representatives Saleem al-Jubouri announced on
Friday that he will be assigned the next session of parliament to
discuss the demands of the demonstrators and set time limits for their
achievement, stressing the importance of ending the existence of the
corrupt who have squandered the money of the Iraqi people.Al-Jubouri said in a speech addressed to the demonstrators: that the
House of Representatives will allocate the next meeting to discuss the
demands of the demonstrators and to identify time ceilings for their
implementation," adding, that the demonstrators demands are legitimate
and can not be ignored, it is necessary to end the presence of the
corrupt who have squandered and stole the bounties of the country."

All Iraq News reports:“All of you together to the court, all of you are thieves,” chanted
protesters gathered at Tahrir Square and carrying Iraqi flags. “Friday
after Friday, we’ll get the corrupt out.”Protesters also turned
out in Nasiriyah, Diwaniah, Najaf, Samawah, Karbala and Babel provinces
to air similar grievances, the reporter of AIN said.Baghdad and
other cities have seen weeks of protests against the poor quality of
services, especially power cuts that leave Iraqis with only a few hours
of electricity per day as temperatures top 50C.

Last Saturday, Iraq's prime minister dubbed the protests a "warning sign." He faced more warning signs on Friday. All Iraq News reported, "The Supreme Religious Authority said that Prime Minister, Haider
al-Abadi, has to avoid the partisan confesionalism and uncover those who
hinder reforms." And they noted, "The Supreme Religious Authority called Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi,
to cancel all former and current key officials' privileges." Sputinik added, "Earlier this day, the country’s leading Shiite clergyman Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani released a statement through his aide addressed
to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, stressing that he should immediately
start reforming the government and strike those who steal people’s
money with an 'iron fist'."

And Haider's reaction? Reuters quotes him from Facebook writing, "I promise to
announce a comprehensive reform plan ... and I call on the political
forces to cooperate with me to implement the reform program."

Help me out.

What was happening in February 2011?

Oh, right: Protests.

And what did then-prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki do?

He declared give him 100 days and he would end corruption, create jobs and blah blah blah.

And so Moqtada called for his followers to leave the streets and stop protesting.

Among the things Nouri was supposed to be addressing in the 100 Days
(called in an attempt to defocus attention on the protests and to buy
time for Nouri) was the lack of jobs. Al Mada notes that while the official unemployment rates is 15% (a high number itself), the actual unemployment number is probably 30%. Mohammed
Tawfeeq and Chelsea J. Carter (CNN) report on the impending end of the
100 Days and note what's taking place as the end arrives:But
activists and a leading human rights group accused al-Maliki's
government of a campaign of intimidation against protest organizers
ahead of the deadline, even as an Iraqi government spokesman announced a
news conference to showcase improvements.Hundreds
of demonstrators gathered Friday in Baghdad's Tahrir Square to demand
the release of four protest organizers -- Jihad Jalil, Ali al-Jaf,
Mouyed Faisal and Ahmed Al-Baghdadi -- who were detained during a
protest at the same location a week earlier.Carrying
banners that featured pictures of the four organizers, demonstrators
chanted: "Oh Maliki, don't muzzle the voice of the people/oh Maliki,
release the four immediately."

The 100 Days were also supposed to see an improvement in the security situation. That didn't take place either. Alsumaria TV reports,
"Iraqi Parliament Speaker Ousama Al Nujaifi believes that the
recurrence of bombings in Iraq without control is a clear sign on the
failure to manage security in the country and an indicator on the major
downfall in the performance of security forces."

The 100 Days is over. Al Rafidayn reports
Nouri's press conference yesterday in Baghdad found Nouri expressing
his hope that "the citizens will treat us kindly in the measuring our
accomplishments and that they will be objective." He announced that
meetings would take place today on evaluations. New Sabah quotes
State Of Law's Khaled al-Asadi stating that Nouri will make assessments
through tonight and that the 100 Days was in order to evaluate the
performances and that "no sane person would assume a government only
four years old could accomplish improvement in one hundred days." Oh, how
they try to lower the expectations now. The 100 Days? Al Jazeera gets it right,
"Maliki gave his cabinet a 100-day deadline to improve basic services
after a string of anti-government protests across Iraq in February. He
promised to assess their progress at the end of that period, and warned
that 'changes will be made' at failing ministries. That deadline
expired on Tuesday -- and Maliki largely retreated from his threat,
instead asking for patience and more time to solve problems." Fakhri Karim (Al Mada) observes
that the 100 Days has done little to instill strength in the belief
that Nouri has the "ability to manage the Cabinet" and the duties of the
office of prime minister. Karim notes that Nouri's inability to govern,
his failure at it, led to the protests and that they were for the basic
services which are "the most basic necessities" of our time.

Iraqi politicians are known for playing kick-the-can and insisting, given time, they will solve something while apparently all they're hoping for is that, in the delay, people will forget. Even Nouri appears to hope that the protesters have forgotten 2011. Mustafa Salim and Liz Sly (Washington Post) reports:

The protesters included a sizable number of supporters of former
prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who suppressed similar demonstrations
against the corruption of his government four years ago by detaining and
intimidating organizers. Maliki, who has not attempted to hide his hope
of returning to power, issued a statement calling on Abadi “to hit
corrupt officials financially and politically.”Many demonstrators said they had turned out only to demand what Lamia Fadhil, 29, called “a decent life.”

“For
more than 10 years the government didn’t provide anything for us. No
electricity, no services and no jobs,” she said. “That’s it. We’ve had
enough.”

Reuters reports:In Basra on Friday, one sign depicted the city as a bony
"milking cow" -- a reference to complaints that Baghdad has
benefited from the region's oil while neglecting basic services
like power and water. "I call for fighting any corrupt official," said government
employee Muntadhar Hatam, 55. "They are more dangerous than
Daesh (Islamic State). They are the terrorists."

The same charges were made against Nouri al-Maliki.

Is that any real surprise?

Nouri al-Maliki is head of the Dawa political party.

Haider al-Abadi is in the Dawa political party.

Ahead of the 2010 elections, Nouri refused to run with Dawa and created the political coalition State of Law.

Haider al-Abadi is a member of the State of Law coalition.

There were any number of Shi'ite politicians US President Barack Obama could have backed for prime minister this time last year.

He could have gone with, for example, anyone from the National Alliance or ISCI. He could have backed Moqtada (though he never would, the US government has spent 12 years demonizing Moqtada).

Instead, for 'change,' he backed someone who was friends with Nouri, who served in Nouri's political coalition and was a member of the same political party.

And then Barack wanted to pretend 'change' was possible in Iraq.

Nouri pulled the country to the edge of destruction.

For those not paying attention, the Iraqi people kicked him out in the 2010 elections but Barack used a contract (The Erbil Agreement) to give Nouri a second term as prime minister. That agreement was supposed to ensure a power-sharing government and Barack personally called Ayad Allawi (whose Iraqiya won the election) to insist that the contract had the full backing of the White House.

But Nouri refused to implement the power-sharing government.

So Iraqi leaders began demanding he do so in the summer of 2011 -- Ayad Allawi, Moqtada al-Sadr, Osama al-Nujaifi, Massoud Barzani and more -- Shi'ites, Sunnis, Kurds, all demanding Nouri honor the contract.

He refused to do so.

So, in the spring of 2012, they moved towards a no-confidence vote in Parliament to strip Nouri of his office.

Moqtada repeatedly stated publicly that the effort could be killed at any time by Nouri agreeing to implement the power-sharing government he promised in The Erbil Agreement (promised in order to get a second term after losing the 2010 election).

They gathered the signatures, as the Constitution demanded. They then handed them over to the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani.

Talabani refused to obey the Constitution and forward the petition to Parliament.

He instead announced he had checked the signatures and some of the MPs -- he never identified them -- said they wouldn't sign the petition if it was put before them today.

Too damn bad.

Not only was this not Jalal's role but there's also the fact that you make your decision when you sign. You don't get to remove your name after you signed (and maybe they wanted to or maybe Jalal just lied).

If they wanted to change their mind, they could do so during the actual vote.

But, under pressure from the White House, Jalal pretended he had the right to kill the petition and that's what he did.

Then like the grotesque fat ass coward that he is, he announced he was leaving for Germany because he needed to have surgery -- it was surgery necessary for his continued living.

Turns out he was having knee surgery.

Karma bit the liar in the ass and months later he'd have a stroke.

But after he killed the petition, the Iraqi people took to the streets.

They had tried to vote Nouri out.

They had tried to have their elected officials remove him.

All they had left was protests.

And Nouri called them terrorists, had reporters covering the protests kidnapped by the police, tortured by the police and he had the protesters followed home, had them arrested, had them killed -- yes, had them killed (especially in Anbar Province) and then he began attacking them at peaceful protests.

The Iraqi people could not take a third term of Nouri -- Nouri who'd promised in 2011 that he would not seek a third term.

The point of forcing Nouri out, as Barack did, was to calm the crises in Iraq.

The point was to provide a re-set.

And the new prime minister -- whomever he or she was -- would work quickly to demonstrate a difference with Nouri, to end the persecution, to end the corruption, to provide public services, to end the illegal detention of Sunnis, the beatings and rapes of Sunni women falsely arrested, and so much more.

He couldn't even stop the illegal bombings of residential neighborhoods in Falluja.

September 13, 2014, he noted these bombings were wrong (they are illegal, they meet the legal definition of War Crimes).

He said they had ended. He had ordered their end.

September 14th, the very next day, they continued and have ever since.

Haider's provided no change and the Iraqi people are registering that after a year.

About Me

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